


Wherever I go, he goes

by Grumperella



Series: The Mandalorian - Missing Scenes [6]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Adorable Grogu | Baby Yoda, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Din is still learning how to be a good dad, Din panics, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Grogu | Baby Yoda Needs a Hug, ManDadlorian, Protective Din Djarin, Rebuilding Trust, Sad Grogu | Baby Yoda, Separation Anxiety, Soft Din Djarin, bathtime for baby Grogu, he's trying his best, the poor Razor Crest wasn't built for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29343249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grumperella/pseuds/Grumperella
Summary: As the bounty hunter rounded the starboard engine, he stiffened, blood running cold.The gangplank was down, the cargo hold wide open.No.___A bounty hunt ends up taking a lot longer than Din expects, and he when finally returns to the Crest where he'd left the child safely locked away, or so he thought, his worst fears are realized…(Heavy protective/worried angst and feels for Din and his little green son)___Takes place between S1 & S2. Sets up the missing scene when Din emphatically decided "Wherever I go, he goes..."
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Series: The Mandalorian - Missing Scenes [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055501
Comments: 5
Kudos: 93





	Wherever I go, he goes

**Author's Note:**

> Hoping this payout will finally give him and the kid some peace, Din decides to take a bounty for the famously feared Snoova, a dangerous Wookiee mercenary affiliated with the Black Sun crime syndicate. Stumbling across a New Republic Special Ops team also on the Wookiee’s tail, he teams up with the undercover team to take down the quarry together. On the day the group plans to enact their plan, Din decides to leave the child safely locked up in Razor Crest while he leaves with the New Republic crew in their undercover ship. However, finding and taking down Snoova proves a greater challenge than expected… 
> 
> And when Din finally returns to his ship on the jungle planet Konkiv, his worst fears are realized…

Three days… It had taken three, long, exhausting days to track down and capture Snoova, which was far longer than he’d been expecting to be gone. Din couldn’t help the tingle of worry that made his heart flutter as he hurried through the port town. The poor kid must be beside himself… he’d left food out just in case the job took a little longer, but not _two extra days_ worth. He was all alone in that ship, probably hungry and confused and afraid… _Kriff_ , he hoped the kid was okay…  
  
Trying not to run, so as not to draw unwanted attention to himself, the Mandalorian stormed quickly through the town’s central market, carefully navigating the adjoining slums, past the perimeter walls and out into the surrounding jungle. The salt of the sea air from the port that had been sharp in his nose was starting to dissipate, the dense humidity of the greenery taking its place. Once he was out of sight of the city’s wall guards, the bounty hunter broke into a jog, his _beskar’gam_ feeling heavier than it ever had as he ran the last half-mile to the clearing he’d set the Razor Crest down in days ago.  
  
Finally seeing the gleam of his ship’s hull through the trees, Din slowed on aching legs, catching his breath as he pushed away large, waxy leaves and peered into the clearing. He approached cautiously, turning on the heat sensor in his visor and doing a quick sweep around the edge of the trees, making sure there were no hidden surprises waiting for him by his ship. Seeing no threats, Din stepped quickly into the clearing and headed for the ship’s bay door. As the bounty hunter rounded the starboard engine, he stiffened, blood running cold.

The gangplank was down, the cargo hold wide open. 

_No. Nonononono._

Racing the last few meters to his ship, Din sprinted up the ramp into the Crest’s lower deck, helmet swinging side-to-side wildly as he took in the open, empty bunk in the far corner.  
  
“Kid, I’m back!” he shouted desperately into the stillness, stomach sinking at the resounding silence. 

_No_. 

Breath hitching in his throat, he darted up the ladder to the cockpit, poking his head out of the opening only to see an empty room, the kid’s passenger seat bare.  
  
“ _Ad’ika_?!” There was no responding coo, no little face that poked out from the cockpit doors. Cursing under his breath, the man slid back down the ladder to land heavily on the deck and swung around.  
  
The kid wasn’t there. _The kid wasn’t there._  
  
An unfamiliar panic seized him, squeezing his heart like a fist as his body was set alight with lightning bolts of adrenaline. His breaths turned shallow and fast as he dashed to check his open bunk, despite already knowing what he’d find. He tossed empty blankets aside and tore apart the little hammock, then swung around and began pulling his storage crates away from the wall, looking behind them.

Maybe the kid had tucked himself away in one of the ship’s many nooks and crannies… The Mandalorian tapped the thermal sensor on his helmet, head darting from side to side as he looked around the room and through the walls of the ship.

“ _Ad’ika_ , if you’re hiding, this isn’t funny,” he called out loudly, trying to keep the tremble out of his voice. “I’m sorry I took so long, but I’m back now…” His last vain attempt turned breathless. “Kid?”  
  
He didn’t see any heat signatures and his distressed calls into the empty room went unanswered. The kid was gone. 

“Shit. _Shit_!”

Lashing out, Din kicked one of the crates back against the wall in a fit of rage where it crashed thunderously against the durasteel panel. He panted anxiously in the heavy silence that followed.  
  
The kid must have left the ship somehow… or… or someone took him. Icy fear pulsed through his veins, leaving him shaky and cold beneath his armor as he sprinted outside the ship, turning on his tracker. His own footprints were now overlaid on his viewfinder, and he could clearly see where he’d come out of the jungle earlier. Adjusting the settings, he sought the small tri-digit prints of his ward. Nothing. The kid’s tracks must be too subtle... He walked briskly around the perimeter of the ship, adding more data to his HUD, until finally on his second pass the viewfinder picked up the trail of the faint little footprints at the base of the ramp. They led away from the ship into the brush, where the trail became spotty.

“ _Ad’ika_!” Din called loudly into the surrounding trees as he strode quickly to the edge of the clearing. He waited with bated breath, but there was no responding coo, no rustling in the leaves.

_No, no, no no._ He can’t have lost the kid. It couldn’t happen like this. Heart lodged in his throat, the bounty hunter pulled out his blaster and started carefully making his way into the trees, following the vague trail.  
  


* * *

  
After about 30 minutes of making his way carefully through the humid trees, Din paused as he heard the telltale sound of a stream in the distance. It had been slow going since he’d had to stop and backtrack to collect more data for his HUD to find the trail again a few times. The kid’s prints were small, and his impact on the environment nearly imperceptible. It was a miracle there was a trail to follow at all. Luckily, the advanced tracking system in his helmet was coming through for him... but if he reached that stream and the trail ended, it would be near impossible to pick it up on the other side.  
  
Assuming the kid had entered the stream, and made it out the other side-

Sharply cutting off that train of thought, Din narrowed his focus to the task at hand and took stock. So far, he hadn’t seen any other tracks near or following the kid’s, so with some relief he could surmise the toddler had simply wandered off on his own, rather than being led or followed.

Right. So, the kid had left the ship on his own and wandered off into a dangerous jungle full of unknown predators… because _he_ hadn’t come back. Because he’d _abandoned_ him. 

Scowling at himself, Din tried to shake off the self-deprecating thought as he cautiously approached the stream, blaster out in one hand and pointed at the sky.

The trees and vines thinned the closer he got, the babbling water of the wide brook growing louder, until suddenly he was on a mossy bank. Small red lizards and spotted yellow frogs darted off spray soaked rocks as he stepped forward, disturbing the peaceful scene. Helmet angled down at the jungle floor, the faint imprints of the kid’s pronged feet were highlighted against the gray-green ground cover. The prints circled and crossed over each other quite a few times here, a number of larger indents where the child must have sat, then a set of four digits that diminished back to two, where the kid must have lifted himself back up and wandered off, headed up the bank. _How long had the kid sat here at the stream, wondering what to do next?_

Din forced himself to take deep, measured breaths and simply followed the tracks, looking up at his surroundings regularly to see if he could catch sight of the little runt. After a few minutes walking up the bank towards the stream’s source, the mossy cover gave way to smooth stone, and he saw that the stream was bubbling down from a small waterfall that broke over the edge of a stone cliff that now jutted up about six or seven meters into the sky before him. A dead end. Looking around, he could no longer see any hint of the tracks on the rocks. Without any dirt, brush or moss to hold the shape of the little feet, the trail was lost. 

“Dank farrik. _”_ Din huffed frustratedly, then sighed. 

Layers of birdsong trilled loudly around him, the skittering of various wild creatures audible beyond the line of trees. He tried to tune it out and focus as he changed his helmet’s viewfinder from the tracker back to the thermal sensor. The world crashed into a kaleidoscope of colors around him. Heat was everywhere. There were orange blobs of fish in the stream, small beads of red as birds fluttered between the trees and lizards skittered across the ground, and larger heat signatures further in the jungle that he could presume were native creatives, based on the way they moved. Adjusting his sensor to only seek out signatures at least as large as the kid, the world faded into a monochrome of blues. He looked down at the stone, cold in his sensor’s view, then held out a gloved hand to brush against the smooth, moisture tempered cliff face that now blocked him. 

“Where’d you go, kid?” His soft murmur was swallowed by the cacophony of the jungle, stifled by the dense, humid air. A bead of sweat dripped down the side of his face under his helmet.  
  
Looking left, then right, his choices were to either cross the stream, or follow the stone wall away from the water, where it curved north into the jungle’s foliage. Peering into the stream, Din worked his jaw for a moment, thinking… he was willing to bet the kid hadn’t tried to cross it. The stream wasn’t deep, maybe about halfway up his calf, but the kid was only as high as his knee, and his thermal sensor told him the water was frigid. His helmet shifted as he looked to his right. Jungle it was then. The bounty hunter holstered his blaster and started moving away from the stream, turning his head to take in his surroundings as he did, keeping an eye out for any other evidence of tracks.

Hand still trailing along the stone to his left, the jungle foliage had nearly closed back in around him when he saw a deep blue divet in his viewfinder where the air went cold. It appeared to be a dark alcove in the rocky cliff wall, perhaps a cave. Hurrying towards it, Din flattened himself against the edge, then turned his visor and poked his helmet around the corner to peer into the alcove. The little cave wasn’t deep at all and there, huddled against the back wall, was a small red blob, exactly the size of his foundling. His breath choked in his throat and he hastily turned off the heat sensor, confirming with his own eyes the little green and brown figure slumped against the stone.

“Kid!” He rasped out in relief, startling the little one who squeaked in surprise. At first the child cowered, pushing back against the alcove wall and Din realized his figure was silhouetted against the light streaming in from behind him. He immediately kneeled, dropping to one knee as he tore off his helmet. 

“ _Ad’ika_ , it’s me. It’s _me_.” His voice was soft and desperate, begging the kid not to be afraid.  
  
A drawn out coo sounded as the child’s ears perked up in recognition. As though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, the kid struggled to his little feet and blinked slowly. Then, with a fearful little cry he was waddle-running for Din, stubby arms stretched out as far as they could go. Catching him head on, the Mandalorian swept up the child the moment he was within reach, hugging him tightly to his chest and pressing his stubbled cheek against the little green head. 

Clenching his eyes closed, Din tried to breathe through his overwhelming relief, but no matter how many shuddering breaths he took he could feel the wetness growing in his eyes. 

“ _Ad’ika, ad’ika, ad’ika_.” He repeated like a prayer as he hugged and rocked the child. “You’re ok, buddy. I’m here. You’re ok.”

The child’s face crumpled as his little babbles turned into sobs, hands pawing and hugging at Din’s neck and face. Sad, piercing wails wrenched out of the little body and Din couldn’t blame him, his heart clenching painfully as he mumbled platitudes in Mando’a.

“ _Ni ceta,_ I’m so sorry _, ner ad’ika, ni olar, ni olar._ ”

The kid must have been terrified that Din was never coming back… terrified that he was all alone, again. Din clenched his eyes tighter as shame rolled through him.

But they couldn’t afford to linger long like this, he needed to get the kid back to the ship. He needed to check him over for any injuries, get him washed, get him fed… and they needed to get off this stinking, humid planet.

He attempted to pull the kid away from his neck to get a good look at him, but the toddler’s bawling only intensified and he winced.

“Okay, okay, kid. I hear you.” With one hand cupping the small form to his neck, Din reached down with the other to retrieve his helmet and replace it firmly over his head. Tapping a button on the side, he resumed the tracking overlay, this time setting it to his own footprints so that he could easily find his way back to his ship. The hunter stood and looked down at the weeping child with a worried frown, noticing the mud that caked him from head to toe. He sighed.

“Let’s get you back home.”  
  


* * *

  
As Din carried the kid back to the Crest, the toddler’s fraught wails slowly dissolved into exhausted sniffles and hiccups. By the time they’d made it back to the clearing, the kid was quiet and withdrawn, his tiny claws gripping Din’s under armour, face buried in the man’s cowl.

Once inside the Crest, Din had been quick to close up the ship and get them airborne, setting the navigation to a far flung sector then switching to autopilot before returning to the lower deck. Turning, he’d found the child sitting quietly on the bunk exactly where he’d left him, head bowed sullenly, tiny hands clasped together in his lap. _That was unlike him..._

“Kid?” 

No responding coo, no giggles. Din’s brows knit together in worry. Was the kid injured? Or just mad at him? He wouldn’t blame him… _Kriff_. 

Sighing, the Mandalorian knelt in front of the bunk, taking his helmet off silently and setting it aside. The child’s large brown eyes rose timidly and when they met Din’s, the man quirked a small, tired smile. Hastily, the kid looked back down at his lap and the hunter’s face fell, his shoulders slumping. 

The reality that he’d disappointed the kid left him feeling deflated, like everything he was had been scooped out and left him empty... Dank farrik, he _knew_ he’d mess this up somehow: he wasn’t cut out to care for a kid! He was a _bounty hunter_ for Mandalore’s sake. On the Razor Crest… with him... it was a _terrible_ place for a child!

_Not now_ , he scolded himself. Huffing through his nose, Din worked his jaw and made an effort to force the demoralizing thoughts away. Instead, he pursed his lips and looked down to remove his vambraces and gloves, letting them fall to the floor beside his helmet. He couldn’t linger on any of that right now: the child was here in front of him, muddy and hungry and tired, and possibly even wounded. He could be angry at himself later. 

The man deftly folded back his long sleeves up to the elbows as he looked up and regarded the glum youngling.  
  
“Let’s take a look at you, kid.” He murmured as he leaned forward and reached out with bare hands to check the little body for injuries. Mercifully, the child did not flinch away from his touch, letting his fingers run gently over the wrinkled head, around his ears, behind his neck, then letting him unwrap the bundle of robes. Removing the muddy outer layer and setting it aside, Din then pulled off the child’s onesie and leaned further to inspect the small form back to front. He didn’t see any cuts or abrasions, thankfully. Pressing softly against the narrow shoulders, back and diminutive arms, the child simply watched his hands and didn’t react, which Din took as a good sign. Until, that is, his thumb and forefinger squeezed lightly around one of the child’s feet. At the pressure, the boy cried out and mewled sadly, patting insistently at the man’s hand, who instantly let go.

“Sorry, sorry.” The hunter breathed hastily as he pulled away, brow furrowed and frown deepening. From what he’d felt, he didn’t think the little foot was broken… but it was hard to tell. The kid could have rolled his ankle as he’d wandered the jungle… maybe slipped on the wet rocks by the stream or tripped over vines… 

Din’s imagination went wild for a moment, thinking of all the other ways the kid could have gotten hurt, or worse, all alone in that jungle… he imagined a tiny form face down in the stream, or ripped apart by the spotted jungle cats, or whole but unmoving in that small alcove... 

Suddenly, his heart was beating thunderously in his ears, then lodging itself in his throat. The Mandalorian swallowed thickly and reached out to take the kid’s diminutive clawed hands in his own, pressing gently with his fingers as he held them. Little fingers twitched beneath his own. 

_The kid was alive, the kid was okay._

He kept repeating those words to himself until his heart rate had slowed to a less deafening cadence. He hadn’t even realized he had clenched his eyes closed until he was opening them, meeting the kid’s own anxious gaze. He sighed.

“C’mon. Let’s get all this mud off you, then I can put some bacta on your foot.”

Rising, Din pulled out the small cargo crate he’d emptied long ago to use as the kid’s bathing basin and set it on the floor by the fresher. Pulling out the connector tube from the moisture recycler, he set the temperature control and began filling the basin with water. 

While he himself generally used the sonic shower that his fresher was equipped with, it had been impossible to get the kid to sit still in it in the beginning, and he couldn’t really hold the kid in without getting sonic’ed himself. So, he’d taken to making water baths for the little hellion, who clearly preferred the water anyway, making it a better experience for both of them... if a little more _hands-on_ than Din had ever expected to be. 

He’d had to get creative to make it happen though. His kitchenette was not equipped with a sink and the one in the fresher was not at all large enough to bathe the child in. So, he’d emptied one of his smaller waterproof crates and then finagled a way to fill it with water by pulling the tubing out of the wall that connected the moisture recycler to the fresher sink. By manually controlling the water flow and temperature, he could fill the little basin when needed for bath time, then hook it back up to the fresher. It wasn’t pretty - there was now a permanent opening in the ship’s inner wall that exposed the tubing and wires - but it worked. He supposed a pre-Empire gunship hadn’t really had “bathtime for baby” in mind when it was built.

Shutting off the water, Din’s testing of the temperature with a finger was muscle memory, and he hummed agreeably at what he felt. 

Looking back over at his bunk, he saw the large, dark eyes watching him. The kid hadn’t moved… hadn’t wriggled off the bunk and waddle-run naked around the ship, giggling, as he was wont to do before Din could wrangle him into the bath. No, instead he simply sat, quiet and reticent. Sighing, the hunter rose to pick the infant up, being careful not to jostle his injured foot, then carefully placed him in the basin. Using a small cloth and some soap, the battle calloused hands set about cleaning the mud and grime off of the little green form, the man noting gloomily all the ways the child wasn’t himself as he worked. 

The little guy usually loved bath time, once he finally got the kid in the water at least. He’d splash and play, often making a mess that Din would grumble about without any real heat. He’d swat at Din’s hands, trying to grab at and play with his fingers, elated with the skin-on-skin contact that the hunter’s gloves rarely afforded. 

Now though, the child was still and cooperative, occasionally raising his eyes to look up at the man, but always darting his gaze away. 

To be honest, Din wasn’t sure what this moodiness meant… the kid was usually so resilient, his moods not so fickle. They’d traveled together for many months now: the kid had seen firefights, been held hostage, gotten napped by Stormtroopers and more… yet he hadn’t seen the kid this distant since… well, since they’d very first met.

Din’s stomach dropped and his hands nearly faltered as his fingers scrubbed gently between the small toes of one foot. Was that… had he so completely lost the kid’s trust? Were they back to square one? He couldn’t help his crestfallen expression at the thought.

“ _Ad’ika_ …” he sighed as he cupped water in one hand, pouring it over one pointed ear. “I’m sorry that I was gone so long. I never should have left you here alone.” 

He considered his words for a moment, repeating the gentle rinse on the other ear before coming to a decision. 

“From now on,” he mused aloud, “ **wherever I go, you go** . And wherever you go, I go. Got it?” Din pressed a finger under the kid’s tiny chin, angling the baby’s face up to look at him. The toddler met his gaze with wide eyes and perked one ear up. 

“I promise, buddy. No more leaving you in the ship, or with random mechanics, or with my friends, no matter how much I trust them.” His thoughts turned to Peli and Greef and Kuiil, the last sitting heavily on his mind. He thought about how that standoff in the hangar on Tatooine or the fight on Nevarro could have ended differently… how the kid’s foray into the jungle could have ended differently. 

Never again. Yes, his life was dangerous, but if they were separated, there was nothing Din could do to protect his foundling. He was better off keeping the kid at his side than leaving him in the hands of fate.

“I know I’m not perfect, kid. My life - our life - is dangerous, but I am a Mandalorian, and you are... powerful in your own way. I will trust that there is no safer place for you than at my side, and that together we are stronger than apart.” 

For the first time in what felt like hours, the child sounded a happy little coo, his expression looking a little brighter. Din lifted the corner of his mouth in a lopsided smile.   
  


* * *

  
After getting the kid cleaned and fed and applying bacta cream to his foot, Din had hoped that a good night's rest would put an end to his foundling’s strange behavior. 

So, he’d laid down that night, one eye on the little bundle in the hammock above him until he’d heard the soft, telltale snores, and eventually fallen into a fitful sleep, hoping everything would be back to normal when they woke. 

To Din’s dismay and bewilderment, things did _not_ go back to normal. In the following days, the kid remained just as distant. He’d sit in his little crate in the passenger seat as Din piloted the Razor Crest, rolling the shift knob around but otherwise making little noise. The kid didn’t reach for him, or cry for him… in fact the child barely looked at him…

While he was in the same room, at least. 

The baffling development that Din hadn’t expected was the child’s screaming fits the moment he stepped out of sight. The kid was usually pretty good about naps, only occasionally fighting them when he was clearly overly tired and already past the point of being reasonable… but now it was like a switch had been flipped. The kid was silent as Din placed him in his hammock, but the moment he closed the bunk’s door, the kid was wailing, throwing the most intense tantrum the man had ever seen out of him until Din ran back and re-opened the bunk. A soon as the kid set eyes on him again, he’d just… stop, quieting almost immediately, despite the tears still tracking down his small chubby cheeks as he stared up at the man.

There was still no happy gurgle, no reaching hands. He’d just stare, and breathe. Din quickly realized that the kid wasn’t putting up with being separated from him, even for short stints of time. Not knowing what else to do, Din started setting the kid down for his naps in the crate he’d attached to the passenger seat in the cockpit, bringing up the child’s blankets for him. At night, he’d bring the blankets back down when he set the kid to bed in the hammock. The child, when he wasn’t throwing a tantrum, was still taciturn and withdrawn, playing with his toys or his blanket quietly as long as Din was somewhere in the room where he could see him. The man had started noticing too, that the kid would look up regularly as he played, and especially right after waking up from a nap, as if to make sure that Din was still there. 

When the hunter realized what was happening, it was like a punch to the chest. He knew this was some sort of… reaction caused by his disappearance. His heart hurt for the kid, and the shame he felt knowing that _he_ had caused this level of uncertainty, this anxiety, was crushing.

It was like they were strangers to each other again… although at the beginning of their time together, the kid didn’t seem to mind when he was handed off or when Din disappeared for a while. Especially on Sorgan, the kid was so distracted by all the other children and villagers and krill that Din could easily do his patrols in the forest and return without the kid even noticing he was gone. Now, he could barely use the vac tube in private without the kid freaking out.  
  
When he’d told the kid “wherever I go, you go”, he hadn’t meant it quite so literally. But, he figured trust was earned, and if he’d broken it, it would take time to win it back. So, he’d tried to be patient. Making sure he stayed where the kid could see him as much as possible. Taking the kid with him, bundled into a sac that the hunter slung across his body when he went planetside to refuel the ship and restock their supplies.  
  


* * *

  
On the 15th standard day after he’d found Grogu in that little alcove, the kid waddled up to his leg while he sat in the pilot’s chair, and settled his little claws on the man’s boot. A pulse of nervous anticipation coursed across his skin like goosebumps. Heart fluttering with hope, the bounty hunter looked down. 

The child’s face was angled up at him, large eyes blinking… an ear twitched.. then, little arms reached up for him, two chubby fists clenching and unclenching in a familiar demand and Din exhaled a ragged breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Instantly letting go of the steering, the Mandalorian reached down and scooped up the child, cradling him to his chest. The kid nestled into the crook of his arm like a ball fitting into its bearing. Despite being so tiny, in this moment Din felt every ounce of him.  
  
“Hey kid.” He murmured, giddy with relief. 

A soft coo, one of the first ones he’d heard in days, sounded up from the boy and Din couldn’t help the relieved twitch of his lips as his eyes searched the little green face. Reaching up, Din pulled off his helmet and set it gently on the ship’s console, looking down at the child with a sober expression.  
  
“ _Ad’ika_ … I…” he wanted to apologize, he wanted to make promises, he wanted to beg for forgiveness… but over the last couple weeks, he’d already done all of that. Either the kid already knew, or still wouldn’t understand. There were no more words… 

It had just taken the kid time to warm back up to him. 

That was fair, he supposed, and the wait had been worth it. Because now, rather than the passive, blank stare he’d been receiving for the last 15 days, the child looked up at him with that innocent contentment that he hadn’t realized he’d missed until it was back. With a little gurgle, tiny clawed hands reached up for him, tapping gently against his face.  
  
The kid looked… happy to see him, happy to be held. Shoulders slumping with relief, a smile pulled at Din’s lips and for a moment, they simply took each other in. 

Perhaps the child had needed to be sure that this wasn’t temporary… that he hadn’t abandoned him on purpose… that he wouldn’t just _disappear_ again. Sadly, he knew he couldn’t make the kid any promises he didn’t know he could keep. Their existence on the run was fraught… their peace fragile. But he was here for him, now. And he wouldn’t let him out of his sight again.

“I’m here, _ad’ika_ ,” he murmured softly, squeezing the boy’s little hand between two fingers. “I’m here.” 

Din figured that, of all things, couldn’t be said enough.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Mando'a Translations:**  
>  beskar’gam - Mandalorian armor  
> ad’ika - little one, son  
> ner ad’ika - my little one/my son  
> Ni ceta - I'm sorry (groveling)  
> ni olar - I'm here
> 
> Note 1: [**This**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28711638) little one shot I wrote is the story of how Din got the bounty puck for Snoova in the first place.
> 
> Note 2: I do plan to actually write out the adventure of Din tracking down Snoova, but the aftermath, the *angst* is what I live for, so that got written first and I just couldn’t resist getting it on AO3 sooner than later.


End file.
